Originally Posted by
bhrubin
So I was told...but the photos shared in that review should be enough to demonstrate that either not all rooms were renovated or that the renovation standard was terribly unsuccessful in my view.
Except for the junior suite, the other room categories look tired, cluttered, and, well, still dated. The furnishing look old. There is nothing fresh about those rooms, and the bathroom design choices are particularly poor and horribly outdated.
The unsuccessful room and suite designs are especially galling and disappointing when you see how clean and fresh the newly renovated public spaces look. The hotel was successful with the public spaces renovation. The hotel was unsuccessful IMO with the rooms and suites renovation. The design of the rooms and suites is wholly unrelated to the design of the public spaces. It feels like they ran out of money or hired a third rate redesign team for the rooms and suites.
However, the public spaces were done after at least some of the room renovations had been completed. I stayed in the Bristol (unfortunately no suite then as my SNA request failed) around that time and had a choice of a new or old room. [I took the renovated one that had been preassigned; there were aspects of the layout that I didn't like but I chalked it up to the difficulties posed by limitations of a historic structure.] Nothing had been done to the public areas, which were obviously old and showing wear but somewhat charmingly quirky (such as the location and style of the concierge desk), at that time.
Let's not forget that this place is not in the same category as the Imperial (or many other luxury hotels to which you have grown accustomed).